The Lost Art of Lamenting

The help we need to get through an emotionally difficult time doesn’t come from people who are not suffering. It comes from the people who know the same kind of suffering and who are willing to suffer with us. When we lament together as a community we admit that we are vulnerable and, at the same time, discover that we are not alone in our pain. That discovery often gives us the strength to work through the grief and help others cope as well.

When I was in college my mom’s youngest brother died of liver cancer in his early 30’s. Because I was attending school close to where my grandparents lived I spent time with them during my uncle’s illness and after his death. In the years that followed I saw the emotional toll it took on my grandparents. I don’t believe they ever fully recovered from the pain. Years later there were days when I would visit them and some memory, some story, would surface and they would both lapse into a long silence or a sullen mood that would last the rest of the day.

One of the clearest memories I have of that time was of something that my grandmother said to me a few months after my uncle’s death. She said that at the funeral many people were coming up and offering their condolences and saying how sad they were for the family. She said that everyone meant well but they had no idea what it was really like.

Then, one of their neighbors approached them and said, “We know how you feel.” and that changed everything. It changed everything because those neighbors did know what it felt like to lose a child. Their oldest son had died of leukemia before he turned 20. My grandmother said that in that moment she realized that she was, in fact, not alone. There was someone else who knew her pain. There was someone else who had suffered the way she was suffering. Knowing that made all the difference in the world.

As Americans we are not very good at lamenting. In part this is because we don’t like to admit that we are vulnerable or weak. Grieving is a sign that we are not in control of the situation so we tend to repress our grief or suffer through it privately. We put on a brave face in public believing that we should always show our strength so that others do not take advantage of us. We are taught to “stop feeling sorry for ourselves” and get on with life. I wonder if this is due, in part, because so many people carry around so much unresolved grief. Seeing someone else surrender to their grief in a lament brings our own grief to the surface and we don’t want to deal with it.

I also wonder if our culture avoids lament because of time. Grieving takes time. Because we are a people obsessed with being busy and constantly doing things, we feel like we don’t have the time to surrender to our grief by lamenting. Or maybe we are obsessed with being busy because we don’t want to take the time to tend to our grief. The moment of profound loss feels like it will last forever. There is a fear that we will get lost in that lament forever.

When we lament, when we openly grieve, we find that we are not alone. There are others who are lamenting the same kinds of things that we are lamenting. And when we know someone who has gone through  what we are experiencing we get a glimpse that life does indeed go on. We are given the hope that we will not reside in the swirling chaos of grief forever.

Today our laments are dismissed as whiny complaints of people who don’t know how to cope with change. What our culture doesn’t understand is that a true lament is a legitimate way to do exactly that; cope with change. A lament opens the grieving to the community. A lament open our souls to the help that comes from knowing we are not alone. A lament actually does the opposite of what it feels like; it helps us resolve the grief inside of us and move down the path of healing.

Every one of the lament Psalms in the Bible reveals a movement from utter despair to the conviction and trust that things will get better. Every one of them. Instead of carrying unresolved grief buried deep within our souls, we need to find ways to publicly and communally grieve together. We need to do this if we ever want find healing. We need to do this if we ever want to rejoice together in times of joy.

Who rises up for me against the wicked?

   Who stands up for me against evildoers?

If the Lord had not been my help,

   my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.

When I thought, ‘My foot is slipping’,

   your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.

When the cares of my heart are many,

   your consolations cheer my soul.

                                                from Psalm 94